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mill in combination with a customised CIP/CIL circuit can result in gold recoveries of 70% upwards, on refractory dump material which previously would only yield a 20-30% recovery. Capstick says a Deswik Technologies plant reduces leach time by half, with (usually) substantially less cyanide. The plant will come with a cyanide destruction system prior to the re-deposition of the tailings. In some circumstances a Merrill Crowe recovery system will be used which produces a dry tail as opposed to a carbon-in-leach (CIL) plant. The pilot plant consists of a 24m pre-conditioning tank that prepares the dump material prior to milling and can produce between six and 10 dry tonnes of product per day. This particular mill at Farvic will process about 0.5tph, but plants can be built up to a processing size of about 40tph. The mill took five weeks to construct and install. Capstick says there are hundreds of dumps in Zimbabwe, mostly constituting high-grade gold from small size mines. Thus far, six top priority dumps have been identified. The Deswik-ZMI JV offers dump owners a range of turnkey solutions to extract value from their dump. These include the design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of the fine grind gold recovery plant, which will include the long-term management of the plant. The combination of the technology, skills and local knowledge gives the Deswik-ZMI JV the ability to be able to extract value from otherwise uneconomic assets. Although it is still early days, Capstick says there is already potential, and a natural progression for the company to become involved in processing current arisings as well. Further more, the intention is to use the technology for nickel, chrome and platinum operations.
Farvik fine grind gold plant.
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SA Mining June 2009